


Hour of the Wolf

by Arya_Silvertongue



Series: Gospel of the North [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Brother & Sister Relationship - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Greensight and Green Dreams, Non-Linear Narrative, The Winged Wolf, Warging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23929936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Silvertongue/pseuds/Arya_Silvertongue
Summary: It is not a gift, to be so favored by the gods.The Winged Wolf, more than anyone, knows just how steep the price for divinity is. In this new world that so many people killed and died for, Bran watches as his sister and all those dear to her continue to bleed, while the gods take, and take, and take to their hearts’ content.(a tale of the ones left behind, and four conversations with the new King in the North)
Relationships: Arya Stark & Bran Stark, Arya Stark/Daenerys Targaryen, Bran Stark & Rickon Stark, Bran Stark & Sansa Stark, Jaime Lannister & Bran Stark, Jon Snow & Bran Stark, Jon Snow/Arya Stark, Sansa Stark & Brienne of Tarth
Series: Gospel of the North [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1399309
Comments: 37
Kudos: 127





	1. Under the Heart Tree

He can feel their heat, like dying embers struggling against the bonds of unforgiving frost. They don’t belong in this place, and will never come to call it home, not even if the winter takes all the seven kingdoms into its bosom for a whole lifetime.

The cold is not in their blood the way it always will be in Bran’s.

“This really wasn’t necessary,” he tells the trembling figures beside him. “You could have waited until supper.”

Tyrion, who is now nothing but a mop of golden hair atop a pile of fur, continues to mutter darkly.

“What he meant,” Daenerys interrupts, her own teeth chattering, “was that we are both grateful for your granting us an audience, even at such short notice.”

Bran wants to laugh, at these Southerners and their insistence to maintain propriety. In the middle of the godswood, their trial is with the sky, and the snow shrikes, and the solid ice under their heels. These sorts of judges care little for affectations.

“If you say so,” is what he says instead, when a voice that sounds like his lady mother reminds him that he is now king. It is not a real voice, not like the others, but one he welcomes. It is an echo of the past that he invites, unlike the many that are simply thrust upon him. “But my point still stands. We could’ve had this conversation inside, where you are warm and…comfortable.”

He takes the grunt from the moving mountain of coats next to the queen as affirmation.

Daenerys, for her part, is able to suppress a grimace in time. “We weren’t entirely sure when you’d return.”

For a moment, Sansa’s earlier reprimand shines through the clipped words, and Bran forces himself to bite back a sigh.

It did not entirely come as a surprise to him when Daenerys and Tyrion trudged their way to his spot beneath the heart tree. Both his men and the dragon queen’s have been dealing with even more ravens for the past few days. As soon as the war ended, suddenly the rest of the realm remembers their northern counterparts. Dorne, in particular, is sending its eldest daughter and heir, and it has been taking up most of Daenerys’s time and attention, as well as that of her Hand’s.

“That,” Tyrion emerges from the mound of fur with a snort, “And your tongue is looser when you’re in here.”

The comment elicits a raised eyebrow from Bran, and he shifts in his seat to fully face the other man. It looks to be a casual admission, more courtesy than carelessness. They are not enemies, not quite anymore, but it is not often they speak of the messier parts of ruling.

“I have no cause to lie to you.” He holds Tyrion’s gaze when the Hand looks up, before turning to Daenerys. Bran decides to choose his words carefully, as he does when the words are wholly his own; he hasn’t been king for long, after all. “And like I said, I have never met Arianne Martell; I cannot predict her actions any better than you.”

There is a long silence in the wake of his words. After a while, the queen offers a gracious nod. “I understand. And forgive my Hand. It is not that elsewhere you lie, only that you tend to…speak in riddles.”

“What _she_ meant,” Tyrion gives his liege a scowl, and not for the first time Bran thinks their relationship to be rather strange, “was that asking you about our dear Princess Martell while you are in commune with the…er, _spirits of knowledge_ , might yield…clearer answers.”

“I am not here to commune with spirits.” Bran snaps, realizing far too late that much of his impatience has made itself known. The Lannister Imp is far from the most difficult person he has encountered, but the man’s arrogance and willful ignorance of things he doesn’t entirely understand brings Bran back to a time when he was but a few summer old, and with a tongue governed purely by righteous entitlement.

Besides, he prefers both Queen and Hand this way. Quick and competent, if not a little playful and sheepish. It reminds him of how young they are, how young they all are. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that he hasn’t, in fact, lived the thousands of years that he’s made to carry inside him.

“Of course,” Daenerys assures him, glaring down at Tyrion before letting her gaze take a more faraway look. Her mind has been drawn back to the problems at hand, and Bran allows himself to watch her work through it. Both Daenerys and Tyrion’s battlefield is in a council, with lords and advisors, and missives and courtiers. Words are their blades as much as dreams are Bran’s.

And as long as they are occupied with their responsibilities, he is not as likely to be burdened by the colors of their grief — blacks and reds and greys that drown their waking moments. It is what drives him to seek solace in the first place.

_She is not here, Bran. You won't find her here._

Perhaps there is a need to talk, after all.

There is still a bit of resentment from having his peace shattered. Contrary to what Tyrion purports, no greendreams have led him to the godswood this time. Crown or no, Bran sometimes needs to remember what he was, and what he can never stop being.

"Your Grace?" he hears Danerys call out.

Though cut short, he has had his moment of clarity. It is only the honorable thing, the Stark thing, to extend it to his new allies.

“You cannot stay here forever,” he tells them, an answer to the question they can’t quite ask. The very question that Arianne Martell’s letter has brought to the forefront of matters to be discussed.

From the look on Tyrion’s face, it is an answer he’s known for some time.

“I can’t much say I didn’t see that coming.” He gives Bran a grim smile. “You Starks love cutting to the chase, don’t you?”

Bran’s mind stills of its own accord. It’s an opening, one of the many that Tyrion’s been giving a lot of people for a while now, tempting any brave soul to shatter the blanket of illusion many have readily wrapped themselves in.

He feels a boyish sort of glee at the opportunity, and slowly, he extricates himself from the haze of control, and gives in.

“Was she the same, when you were with her?”

Tyrion’s face twists to that of surprise, one of the few times Bran has seen him be open with his true expressions. It makes the lord appear younger, despite the scars.

Beside him, Daenerys freezes with something apart from the cold.

“Aye,” Tyrion finally says, the Northern lilt to his words sounding crude and foreign. The twinkle in his green, Lannister eyes, tells Bran it is entirely on purpose. “She once told me that she’s saved my life fourteen times already, not even three moons after she revealed to us who she really was.” He gives the shortest of sidelong glances towards his queen, but ultimately continues. “Said nine of those times were when she stopped herself from killing me. Not something I ever thought I needed to know, mind you.”

Silvers and emeralds, Bran can remember seeing. Glimpses of a first meeting, in a feast with a visiting king, followed by a reunion under the heat of an Essosi sun. Knives drawn and withdrawn, the bitter taste of confusion on a bleeding tongue. Faces upon faces worn and discarded like robes and jewelry.

Bran returns to the present the same time as Tyrion. The lord shakes himself, like one does to escape the clutches of a memory, and sends both monarchs a curt bow.

“And I think you’re right, Your Grace. About Arianne Martell.” Tyrion turns to his queen. “I’ll tell the general and Lady Missandei to begin the preparations at once. We can leave in a fortnight.”

With that, the Hand marches away from the heart tree, pace far quicker than when he came in, and disappeared in the other side of the ironwood gate.

As Bran settles back into his mind, a feat made easier now that Tyrion’s significant presence has left the godswood, his senses lock into the massive weirwood tree.

It is tempting to sink into the comfort of a familiar space, the embrace of roots as old as castle walls calling to him like a song. He feels the memories of all the things it has seen, and all the things it will see still. Bran can find more than peace there. He can find answers.

“Bran?”

The voice is as warm as dragon fire, dangerous but not a danger, and he grips the wooden handles of his chair, to tether him back to his blood and bones.

“Are you all right?” Daenerys asks

To keep a distance from the pull of easy escape, Bran strains his senses, skills of a more physical nature, to the queen beside him. Her heart is beating loud and fast, her body’s attempt to keep her warm. Beyond it, Bran hears the faintest crackle of flames, but he quickly dismisses it.

It is easier, to reach out to her mind and person now that Bran is surrounded by so many things he can tap into. He cannot read her thoughts, no. Despite what her lord Hand insists on believing, that is not what Bran does. He can, however, infer from what little Daenerys gives him with her presence.

The tight grip on her outer robes, the way she anchors her feet to the snow and pins her questions to the trunk of the weirwood, tell Bran she has come to him to talk about something more than the Dornish princess.

“The cold,” he begins, not certain how to speak now that the woman before him is less a queen and more another person his sleeping sister has left behind. “It bothers you.”

As though to prove his point, a strong breeze passes through them, and Daenerys’s shiver is almost too loud in a place so quiet.

“I’ve been to many lands,” she tells him, when the shakes subside. “But none of them made me feel as unwanted as this place.”

There is another cold gust of wind, as though the winter has come to bid them welcome now that it is being discussed. Bran closes his eyes and waits.

“This is no place for dragons,” Daenerys continues, her voice taking a dream-like state. “I told her that much.”

When Bran opens his eyes, he finds her trying a distracted, knowing smile, lost in another memory. Fond is a good look on the sad queen.

“Wouldn’t listen, of course. She knew that the North needed dragons to win the war, and damn it all, dragons there will be.”

If he reaches out to the threads of her thoughts, the king can almost see it for himself, the justice and defiance that make up the very bones of his brave sister.

“Deny her anything, and it becomes her heart’s desire.” His words startle Daenerys, and she holds his gaze with something heartbreaking on her face. “Our mother despaired of her, my second sister. She used to say that hers was a will that can bring the seven kingdoms down.”

Daenerys laughs, despite herself. Bran is once again reminded of the youth the queen often hides behind her Valyrian eyes.

It is always so easy, to dismiss the last Targaryen as someone to remind him of his duty and vows. She carries with her so much history that has often brought nothing but grief for him, his remaining family, and the ghosts he carries, so to look at her and feel connection, to see her as someone that cared about the same things and the same woman as he does, is a different thing altogether.

“Bring them down,” Daenerys repeats, voice light for words that are so burdensome, “or save them.”

"Indeed." Bran nods. “She would be proud of her. Mother and father both.” There is a hitch in his chest, and he swallows it down. “And Robb.”

There is silence for a long moment, before Daenerys speaks again. “Do you think she's with them now? With the rest of your family.”

The questions surprises Bran. Of all the people and the demands he’s dealt with regarding the matter, he has yet to hear someone voice out the thought that everyone cannot seem to face. Until now.

“I do not know,” he tells her. It is not entirely the truth, but Bran has learned more than his fair share of lessons when it comes to keeping things close to your heart. This is perhaps the most important one he has had to, after all. 

His resolve remains, though he isn’t entirely surprised when he sees Daenerys’s bright eyes flash. Their brief moment of kinship has come and gone.

“Is that what you tell your brother and sister?”

Her voice is clipped, the difference to the wistful lilt it had just moments ago a testament to how precariously the queen has been balancing her emotions this whole time. It impresses Bran, still, that she’s lasted this long without lashing out at him. The last person to ask him for answers was not so skilled.

“Your Grace…”

“Is that what you tell my nephew?”

The moment she speaks the words, the strings holding Daenerys together snaps, and she looks horrified with what she’s spoken.

“Bran- Your Grace, I —” In her haste to place distance between them, she almost stumbles. "I have to —"

“Dany,” he tries to call out. He is still not use to calling her by a familiar name, but nothing else seems appropriate when you are seeing what may just be the most vulnerable part of someone, even a fellow monarch.

“I have to go,” Daenerys whispers, the image of queen and grieving girl flickering before Bran’s eyes. Her face crumbling under the weight of a leashed sob is the last thing Bran sees before she takes off.

"Seven hells."

It has been a long time since Bran has cursed his crippled state, and the familiar resentment comes to him again as he watches Daenerys flee to the waiting ironwood gate, unable to so much as move an inch to stop her.


	2. Down the Crypts

“Hiding from your sister?”

Stale air breezes past Bran’s face, making the light from the lantern above him flicker. For a brief moment, between one breath and another, he thinks he hears a faint cry: a mighty roar over the sound of rushing water, followed by a dark, grim song.

“Lannister.”

The kingslayer moves with a lot more noise than most people would dare make in what many believe to be hallowed ground. His footsteps echo along the endless tunnels of the crypts, heavy and deliberate.

The king recognizes it for the courtesy he does not need nor care for.

“How did you get here?” Jaime Lannister asks, stopping just a little to Bran’s left. “Long way down.”

Bran bites back a tart response, knowing that the man is not worth losing patience over. Instead, he takes a moment to consider his unwanted guest. For lack of a better thing to do, Bran tells himself.

It is perhaps one of the most peculiar things to have come out of the war, he thinks, the way Tywin Lannister’s sons conduct themselves in the presence of the new Stark king.

Tyrion, after learning of Bran’s abilities to warg and have green dreams, steers clear of him. He considers the King in the North a necessary ally, no more and no less. His sister’s husband is smart, and clever, and has had to go through enough hardship himself to no longer be naïve, but Bran knows there are no books in the Citadel or beyond the Narrow Sea that will ever make Tyrion understand him. Not in any way that matters.

Jaime Lannister, however, is a different tale altogether. After that fateful night when he offered Bran Oathkeeper to use on his own legs, the man has made a habit of always seeking him out. Always knowing where he is, and appearing when Bran least wants his presence.

“Is it because I’m a cripple?”

The only light with them is coming from an oil lantern the baker who took Bran to the crypts left him with. It’s hanging on a granite pillar, just above Bran’s head, and it allows him to see the twitch in the kingslayer’s face as he parses through the question.

“I, I don’t…” Jaime swallows. “I’m sorry?”

Somewhere above and faraway, Bran can hear Sansa reminding him that Jaime Lannister saved her life and brought her home. That he’s a changed man.

He brushes the phantom voice away.

“You’re asking how I got here,” Bran echoes. “You’re wondering how I was able to go down the steep and winding stone steps, if someone carried me or wheeled me down. Only I didn’t leave the Great Hall with anyone, and if I asked any of the men, Sansa would know, and she’d be here faster than either of us could draw breath.”

He moves a hand and places it on his lap. The urge to pick at the cloak covering his legs is there, but Bran decides against it.

“I couldn’t have done it myself, though. Surely that is impossible.” He cranes his neck to look at the former knight in the eye. “Because I’m a cripple.”

For so long, Bran would console himself with the thought of making the man who’d taken his legs suffer. He used to dream about it, day and night, when he still had no one to share dreams with. Even when Brynden Rivers had insisted that Bran’s duty and destiny was not to the altar of vengeance, he still nursed fantasies of making Jaime Lannister feel the same helplessness and sorrow he’d gone through when he realized that he was never going to walk, or run, or climb ever again.

In the end, the three-eyed crow was right.

With half of his dead father’s greatsword by his feet, and Jaime weary and willing in front of him, Bran still couldn’t make himself swing the blade.

It would have been a just end, a Lannister paying his debt. If it was Bran’s sentence and Bran’s hands, he would not be sullying Eddard Stark’s honor and good name.

But when it came down to it, he could no longer find enough anger. Looking at Jaime’s face now, guilt and shame as plain as a summer’s day, Bran only feels numb and tired.

He sighs. “If you had any purpose for coming here, I suggest you get to it.”

Slowly, Jaime’s hard gaze on the tombs in front of them softens, and his rigid posture eases. Bran looks away before he can see gratitude in the other man’s green eyes.

When Jaime speaks again, his voice is rough. He has to cough a few times before it can return to the obnoxious lilt he’s been known for.

“Interesting meal a while ago,” he manages, carefully stepping away from Bran and claiming a spot against the pillar on the other side of the sepulchre. He crosses his arms as he leans back, the smirk on his lips swiftly returning. “Is supper with your family always like that?”

When Tyrion had been the only member of the dragon queen’s court to arrive at the Great Hall for dinner, Bran was not surprised. Daenerys’s absence, along with that of her nephew’s, allowed her Hand to invite his brother to eat with the Starks without risking either Targaryen’s ire. Had Sansa not appeared after spending so many nights dining in her chambers, Bran would have made his displeasure known.

“Why don’t you join us every night,” Bran offers. “Perhaps then you’d know.”

This time, Jaime doesn’t even bother hiding his grimace.

“I’m afraid Daenerys Stormborn isn’t very fond of me,” the kingslayer admits.

With a low chuckle that bears little resemblance to humor, he shifts his gaze to one of the tombs before them. Bran follows the other man’s eyes, and sees a face that is both strange and foreign to him. It is only in visions of the past that he has seen his father’s sister, and from fading memories of his own, whom many believe to look much the same. Still, Lyanna Stark’s likeness remains forever etched in stone, years after her folly cost the realm so much grief.

“Neither is your cousin.”

Bran’s first impulse is to leave the remark unacknowledged. Jon is not something he readily thinks about these days. The sheer grief and despair he can feel from the man he once called brother is often too much for him, and every time they are in the same room, it takes most of his strength not to drown in the weight of Jon’s ghosts.

But before he can dismiss Jaime’s comment, Bran remembers something else. He recalls the sharp pain that came to him as word of the Battle at the Red Keep had first reached Winterfell. The night before that, Bran had woken from a terrible dream, certain that he had lost a sister. He’d known then that there was a wolf in the carnage, no doubt fighting for her life again.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Bran forces himself to say, shaking the memory away. “Jon has better things to think about.”

Judging by how high his eyebrows have climbed, Bran’s sharp response takes Jaime by surprise.

“Of course,” the older man concedes after a moment, his face softening into what seems like an attempt at deference. “Forgive me, Your Grace.”

Despite himself, Bran rolls his eyes.

“But I do know Jon is grateful for what you’ve done.” He takes a deep breath, and wills his grip on his chair to ease. “As am I.”

Just as Bran expected, Jaime doesn’t take the gratitude with any semblance of grace. The man uncrosses his arms with measured movements, and gives Bran a flat look. “Whatever for?”

Bran knows that he can take the easy road and give Jaime the answer he is most likely anticipating. This truth, not even Jon knows. There is no reason for Bran to bind himself to Jaime Lannister even further than the gods first intended.

He clenches his jaw before he says, “For saving my sister.”

After a heartbeat, Jaime’s shoulders drop, and he allows himself a startled laugh.

“Trust me, Your Grace; Sansa did the saving all by herself. From what I can remember, and I was only half-awake for the most part, we were actually more nuisance than help. I often wonder why she ever allowed us to accompany her at all.”

It’s almost too easy, to believe Jaime’s words. Everyone in his house was blessed with a silver tongue, after all. But Bran knows better.

He waves an impatient hand, almost sighing before he catches himself. “That is not what I was referring to.”

He has already thanked the kingslayer for bringing Sansa home when he gave him back Oathkeeper, free of any Lannister bloodstain.

As soon as his words take their desired meaning, Jaime stills, his entire body slowly shifting into a form that is taut and dangerous. The light from Bran’s lantern continues to flicker, both their shadows the only things moving with ease in the quiet darkness.

“I know you saved her that day.”

Nearer than she had ever been for the longest of time, Bran’s own Lyanna had been half a realm away when fire and blood came for King’s Landing. In an act of twisted irony that only the gods themselves are capable of, it was Jaime Lannister who pulled her out of the fray.

Bracing for a denial, Bran is surprised to hear the other man’s defeated sigh.

“Of course,” Jaime breathes out, all pretense and mischief in his voice slipping away. “You know everything.”

Bran bristles, though not from the chill.

“I do not,” he snaps, the words sounding sharp even to his own ears.

The air in the crypts is suddenly too thick, choking him. When Bran takes a deep breath, his arms shake, and all at once the fight leaves him.

“Believe me, I do not know everything.”

If he does, he would not be in the godswood, begging the skies for answers. He would not be in his family’s crypts, with the mortal remains of the men who’d worn his crown before him, who’d shouldered his curse.

“But you saw what happened.” Jaime’s gloved hand clenches and eases three times. “That day, when the castle fell.”

Bran saw only what he'd asked for, but it’s enough to tell him that terrible things happened the day Daenerys Targaryen reached the capitol.

When Bran was barely a moon under the tutelage of the three-eyed crow, he’d reached the peak of his frustrations. The first and most persistent of his mortal desires then was to reach the man standing in front of him now. Brynden Rivers was adamant, however, that Jaime Lannister was to play an important role in the war to come. Bran, hopeless and helpless and the farthest he had ever been from his family, had raged and raged, until Rivers told him that Jaime was destined to forsake his blood for someone Bran loved.

As the gods showed him what happened when the Red Keep crumbled about their ears, Bran realized that the crow’s words had come true.

“My sister lived,” says Bran, “and yours died.”

More than anything, even more than Jaime pushing him off a tower and Bran waking up a cripple, it was that fateful day that bound them for good.

Swallowing, Bran decides to leave the ashes of King’s Landing in the past for now, granting them both a short reprieve. For the things yet to come, they both will need it.

“The dragon queen is returning to the capitol,” he tells Jaime. “She has to treat with Arianne Martell if she has any hope of getting Dorne’s support.”

Bran doesn’t see Jaime’s eyes this time, yet he hears the relief in the man’s voice all the same.

“So my brother says. Frankly, I suspect Tyrion is just getting sick of winter in the North. He’d much rather take his chances south of the Neck.

Bran hums in agreement. “And will you join them? Are you riding for King’s Landing as well?”

There’s a short pause, and when Bran looks at Jaime, the kingslayer is giving him a curious glance.

“Pardon?”

“The war is over. Aren’t you going home with your brother?”

Like many of the people now haunting the corridors of Winterfell, Jaime Lannister does not belong in the North. Born and raised under the heat of the Southron sun, he will never thrive in the cold and solitude that is the soul of Bran’s home.

Yet the frown on the other man’s face is telling him a different tale.

“My place is not with them, Your Grace.”

Before Bran can ask Jaime if he thinks Tyrion agrees with that, he sees a slight flush in Jaime’s features. The faint, crimson stain on the man’s cheeks make his green eyes glitter in the darkness.

“Is that so,” Bran says, his voice taking a teasing lilt all on its own.

Suddenly, he remembers Sansa’s account of her escape, and how there were two golden-haired knights who’d saved her that night, not one.

“Brienne of Tarth,” he begins, enjoying the way the kingslayer starts to fidget. “She swore an oath to my mother, your freedom for my sisters.”

The look Jaime is wearing is more than a little cautious, as though he is torn between pride and suspicion.

“Brienne did everything in her power to honor that oath,” he tells Bran, voice hard.

“Yet when she delivered you to your family, Sansa wasn’t there.”

“No.” Jaime’s face becomes guarded again under the weight of Bran’s words. “And she almost paid for it with her life.”

For the first time since the man walked into the crypts, Bran finds that he does not understand what Jaime is talking about.

The king in him bristles, reminding him that Jaime Lannister is not a friend, and has no right to possess knowledge about Bran’s own family than someone who can see beyond the mortal world. But Bran hasn’t spoken to Brienne about Catelyn Stark at all, and he has told himself many times that the dead which cannot rise is not his immediate concern.

Now that the war is over, the gods now see fit to change that.

“Lady Brienne has fulfilled her oath.” Bran realizes that he has to speak to her soon, if only so she knows it as well. And frankly, he has had enough of revisiting the past with Jaime Lannister for a lifetime, let alone one evening. “My sisters are home.”

Jaime looks at him, long and hard, before a resolve takes root in his eyes and he shakes his head.

“And Arya?”

Like Sam and Tyrion, like Missandei and Greyworm and the baker who offered to carry him down the stone steps, there is more than curiosity in Jamie Lannister’s question. Like his siblings, and the last two Targaryens in the world, Bran hears the hope everyone has pinned on him to wake their sleeping champion.

He thinks about fate, as well as forgiveness.

Maybe it really is the kingslayer’s destiny to take away his legs, so he can have wings. Maybe Bran can finally forgive him for it.

“She never believed in fate,” Bran tells the other man, giving the tombs of Rickard, Lyanna, and Brandon Stark one last look before wheeling his chair down the tunnel. “Arya refused to accept that her fate was to be just another highborn lady. She said she wanted to have a choice.”

Above the sound of the wooden wheels against the stone path, Bran hears Jaime’s low chuckle.

“What about you, Your Grace? Do _you_ believe in fate?”

Finding honesty easier in the darkness with someone he used to loathe, Bran stops his wheeling and sighs.

“I don’t know,” he admits. When he looks up, he sees Jaime watching him with sympathy. Somehow, Bran no longer minds it, allowing him to say, “But my sister is not going to die. Not if I have a choice in the matter.”

There is naked relief in Jamie’s eyes as he nods and continues to walk, Bran moving with him after a moment.

“You never answered me, you know.” It’s a long walk back to the steps that will take them up, and Bran fears that Jaime might start whistling. “About how you got here.”

Bran considers his next words, before deciding on, “I flew.”

He can, Bran wants to add, but not in this body.

“Hmm.” Surprisingly, Jaime seems to take his word for it.

They move along the rest of the way in silence. When Bran finally sees the light from the stone steps, he thinks that maybe, he will let Jaime carry him back to the castle.

It will wound him, and his pride, but Bran knows they can both survive it.

He has greater worries to think about now. Like just how far he is prepared to go, and just what things he is willing to do, for love.


	3. In the Library

_Bran hears the soft crunch of snow like it’s the only sound in the entire forest, Summer’s ears sharper than any seasoned hunter's._

_He whips his head to the direction of the noise, teeth already bared. When he sees familiar white fur and even more familiar grey eyes, the direwolf’s body loses all tension before Bran can even make any command. Summer recognizes kin better than he can these days._

_Seeing solemn, Stark eyes where Ghost’s red ones are supposed to be still doesn't feel right._

_Learning about Jon’s own gift was a relief at first; realizing that he was not alone was a delightful discovery, a welcome change. So it surprised Bran that when they’d finally met as beasts that first time, all he felt was unrest._

_Jon is not as powerful warg as he is, but all skinchangers are driven by their base instincts. Bran slips into Summer for liberty; Jon does it for the relish. Whether it is to fill his senses with flesh or oblivion, Bran will never know._

_It is not the first time that they’ve found themselves in the wolfswood, wearing the skins of their closest companions. Sometimes, Bran feels as though he is more wolf than man, Summer’s form as familiar to him as his own. The colder the winter gets, the harder it becomes to shed fur and legs for human skin and a heavy crown._

_Before either of them can answer any desire for a destination to run to, a distant cry echoes across the forest, breaking the stillness that has fallen on the entire place like snow._

_The sound is just as familiar as their own._ Sister _, the howl tells them._ Kin _._

_The wolf’s blood sings, a wordless response to the cry, and Bran cannot tell if it is his or Summer’s yearning that fuels all four legs to move._

_Beside him, Ghost braces himself, the very essence of Jon evident in every exhale. More wolf than dragon, then and always._

_Neither of them howl back; any attempts will no doubt only be drowned out by dozens of echoes that answer the she-wolf’s call._

_They don’t cry back, no, but they run._

_It is both an eternity and a mere heartbeat later, when the wolves find themselves in a clearing, the frozen sentinels above them circling the patch of land as though in reverence. Bran feels Summer heave a breath, almost too wary to make any sound. The clearing looks like the heart of the Known World, the eye of a great snowstorm._

_At the center, on top of a massive rock covered by snow, Nymeria waits._

_While their sister appears to be alone, Bran knows that her pack, brothers and family she’s found all on her own, are scattered in the woods, standing guard. It’s the reason why he enters the clearing one step at a time, ignoring the way every vein is commanding him to pounce._

_Jon, however, is not as wise._

_Ghost takes off with nary a glance, reaching the she-wolf before Summer can so much as lift another paw. When Bran gets there half a moment later, Nymeria has already stepped down, undeterred and unafraid._

_Golden eyes._

_Even though the pack leader carries herself with the same defiance and confidence as Bran’s own sister does, even as a child, the wolf before them is not her. Hasn’t been for a while now._

_As he turns to watch Ghost’s own response to this confirmation, Bran can tell that Jon sees it too._

_Like a candle snuffed out, the White Wolf’s body goes limp, and grey eyes turning red is the last thing Bran sees before he is pulled back into the welcoming darkness._

* * *

“Wake up! Dammit, Bran, wake up!”

There’s more shaking, and thumping, and rough, guttural sounds that may have been words if you tilt your head a certain way, before Bran surrenders and submits himself to the waking world.

“I’m awake, I’m awake.” He raises an arm to swat at the hands assaulting him, as blind as he is a cripple for the first few moments after he opens his eyes. “Stop _hitting_ me.”

The pair of strong but skinny arms belong to his younger brother, who is now staring at him with a frown on his face.

“I wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t started thrashing.” Rickon crosses his offending arms and leans back on the chair no doubt liberated from the corner of the chambers where Bran has his writing table tucked. “And you’re shivering. You smell like a wet dog, too.”

There’s a distinct huff of protest somewhere near Bran’s bed, and Shaggydog emerges from under it a moment later, whining at his master.

“What?” Rickon answers the beast. “He _does_.”

Fighting the urge to hold his head in exasperation, Bran grunts and lifts himself up. Despite his earlier complaints, Rickon swiftly stands to help him.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Bran asks his brother as he settles down, a groan escaping his lips. The craftsmen who made his new chair when he was crowned are talented, and they spared nothing in ensuring that the fit is just right, but Bran’s body is still stiff, and his limbs protest as he tries and fails to get comfortable.

Rickon, who is now sitting on Bran’s unmade bed, scowls at the lack of gratitude.

“I was on my way to the library,” he tells Bran, as though his older brother is already supposed to know this. “Heard the noise from the hallway. Sounded like a kennel in here, and not the king’s chambers.”

The latter part of his response is meant to be the more significant remark, but Bran’s ears hold on to the former half all the same. Rickon has yet to learn the skill of deflection.

Winterfell’s library is on the other side of the castle, one of the few parts of their home not completely destroyed by the war. His brother spends every other morning in lessons with Sansa, or Sam, and before she left, with Lady Missandei of Naath. It is not Rickon’s most favored duty, but he submits himself to the task with enough grace.

The library is indeed where Rickon is supposed to be, only it is nowhere near Bran’s chambers.

“The library,” Bran repeats, his gaze locked on the way his brother fidgets.

“What?” Rickon refuses to meet Bran’s eyes, and there’s the faintest shade of red on the tips of his pale ears, almost the same shade of his Tully hair. “I had to do something first.”

If Bran doesn’t mention that there aren’t many things worth doing in the Great Keep for a young lord who is supposed to be learning the history of the Andals with his sister, they both don’t acknowledge it.

The only people who ever find themselves in this side of the castle are those who come to collect the King in the North for his meals and council meetings, and those who are hoping to slip into the room at the end of the hallway, the one with the door adorned with blue, winter roses.

Deciding to be a brother instead of a king, Bran lets the matter go.

“Well thank you for waking me,” he tells Rickon, in that patient manner he knows his brother abhors. He bites down on the smile that threatens to stretch across his mouth when Rickon’s scowl deepens.

When the younger of the two still refuses to move and leave after a long moment, Bran stares at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Is there anything else you need?”

His brother’s breath hitches and his shoulders stay stiff, all telltale signs of someone bracing for combat. Between them, on the floor, Shaggydog bristles.

“You were gone again, weren’t you?”

Bran spares a moment to be impressed with how clear Rickon’s voice is, despite the earlier hesitation. The caution was for Bran’s sake, then.

“Yes,” Bran answers, the response both for the question asked and the one not spoken.

Rickon, like Sansa, is every bit as much a Stark as he and Jon are. The north is in their blood, and it will remain long after their mortal flesh turns to dust. But unlike the King in the North and the crown prince of Westeros, Rickon and Sansa are not wargs.

“Had to be done.” Bran shakes his head dismissively, hoping to cut Rickon’s other queries before they grow wings. “I dealt with it.”

A hundred protests rise and die in Rickon’s bright, blue eyes, the ones that mirror Bran’s own. In the end, his brother shows a surprising display of maturity, and gives him a swift nod.

“Well,” Rickon breathes out, standing up and dusting imaginary dirt off his breeches, “I’m off to the library. Where are you headed?”

Bran’s mornings often start later than everybody else’s. There’s no away around it. The realm of dreams is his solace, always will be. When he’s not awake, he’s not the King in the North. In his dreams, he is the Winged Wolf, a mere observer. There, he is not responsible for any other lives but his own.

When it’s time to rise and face the day, however, he often starts it with his own rituals. He has refused a companion to help him before he breaks his fast. That is the one dignity he has yet to relinquish. After getting dressed, he makes his way to the room at the end of the hallway, where his sister lies. The evenings are for Jon and Sansa, but the mornings are Bran’s.

Looking at his brother now, it seems that they are Rickon’s as well.

“I’ll join you and Sansa,” Bran decides.

Rickon’s surprise is brief, but Bran catches it all the same.

He knows he’s been avoiding Sansa for a while now. It helps that they’ve been so preoccupied with the Targaryen court’s journey, which gave him reason to be anywhere else but Sansa’s knowing gaze. Bran knows his eldest sister can tell that he’s up to something, but she hasn’t openly acknowledged it. Other than expressing her distaste for his trips to the godswood, she hasn’t forced him to share anything else.

Maybe now that Daenerys and her people are gone, they can finally talk about it. He’s going to need all the help he can get if he is to succeed, after all.

“Very well,” Rickon tells him, circling to take his place behind Bran’s chair, Shaggydog a silent shadow.

It’s a long walk to the other side of the castle, but they make it there before Sansa can send anyone after their wayward brother. There is still an ache at seeing how much damage their home has sustained trying to keep them all alive, but there is hope now. They can rebuild everything now.

“I’m here, I’m here.” Rickon pushes the heavy ironwood doors open, his voice pitched higher and louder to announce their arrival. Bran suspects it’s to derail whatever weapons Sansa may hurl at him for his tardiness. “Someone just needed a little help waking up.”

The king allows the remark to go unchallenged, because by the time they round a corner and reach their sister, they find her in a deep conversation with Brienne of Tarth.

Bran's breath stutters.

“Your Grace.”

The knight is the first to see him, quickly standing in ceremony. Sansa follows suit, acknowledging his presence as her face darts between her two brothers.

“I brought a guest,” Rickon tells them. “Hope you don’t mind.”

As Brienne and Sansa usher them to the table, Bran takes a moment to watch his sister’s friend and savior.

_Brienne did everything in her power to honor that oath._

When he’d first met the Maid of Tarth, Bran was both grateful and livid. While the knight reunited him with Sansa and fulfilled half of the promise she’d made to their lady mother, Brienne also arrived with Jaime Lannister in tow. As he’d grappled with the presence of the kingslayer and the absence of his other sister, Bran was not able to know Brienne beyond that she made herself Sansa’s most steadfast supporter, and that she was excellent with Oathkeeper.

Now, he is coming to realize that there is more to discover about her, after all.

 _She almost paid for it with her life_.

“Anything I should know?” Bran asks, looking at the scrolls and ledgers scattered between the two women.

Sansa follows his gaze, frowns, then sighs. “We’ve received more ravens.”

She doesn’t need to tell him what the missives are about. Bran nods at her response and lets his eyes wander. As they land on Brienne, who is the only one to remain standing when they all have settled down, he sees the knight flinch.

“I’ll send word to the kitchens, my lady. Be better to let them know beforehand.” Carefully, Brienne takes most of the scrolls from the table. Once she’s collected everything she need, she gives Bran a curt nod. “Your Grace.”

“Wait.”

There’s a quiet stillness that follows Bran’s command. Both Sansa and Rickon look at him with matching interest. Brienne, surprisingly, looks as though she has been expecting it.

“Would you stay a while, my lady? There is something I must discuss with you.”

This time, Sansa’s face betrays her confusion. When she turns to look at her friend, Brienne gives her a reassuring smile.

“Of course,” the knight tells Bran. The lack of title is deliberate, and Bran remembers that, despite all that he’s seen and been through, Brienne is still much older than any of the Stark siblings.

“What is this about, Bran?” Sansa asks.

In an impressive display of ease and friendship that Bran has never before imagined his sister to be capable of with a noble woman very much unlike her in most ways, Sansa takes the scrolls from Brienne without prompting, arranging them along with the other things on the far side of the table. The entire act is seamless, and speaks of a deep and strong bond. It pains Bran a little, to know that Sansa never shared such a friendship with her own sister.

Beside him, Rickon watches in silence.

“I’ll talk to Jaime, Your Grace,” Brienne speaks, before Bran can so much as consider his sister’s question. “I’ll make sure he leaves you alone from now on.”

It takes a moment for Bran to understand what she’s saying. When it dawns on him, he can’t help but give an undignified snort. It makes Sansa narrow her eyes, which only serves to amuse Bran even more.

After their conversation in the crypts, Jaime has taken it upon himself to spend all the time he’s not with Brienne or his brother with the King in the North, undeterred by the scornful gaze of half the Northmen who see them together. As far as Bran can tell, the kingslayer even enjoys it. Now that Tyrion has gone with Daenerys to the capitol, Brienne no doubt thinks that Jaime will be even more of a bother. The other man is sure to be, but Bran no longer minds as much.

“Thank you,” he says to Brienne, “but that it not necessary. It’s not Jaime Lannister I wish to talk about.”

There is relief in Brienne’s eyes, followed by trepidation. She no longer has any idea what Bran may say to her, and it almost makes him falter. Maybe he’s wrong, after all. Perhaps he’s simply making connections where there is none. He’s come to rely on his dreams so much that the decisions he makes which are not aided by powerful visions tend to be misguided.

“Bran?”

He’s wrenched away from his doubts by Sansa’s voice. When he turns to her, he sees that concern has eclipsed the confusion, and it steels Bran’s resolve.

“I think I know how to wake our sister.”

There’s a strange sort of freedom, when Bran finally breathes life into the thought that he’s been nursing for so long. From the moment Arya went limp in Jon’s arms to his stilted words with Daenerys Stormborn, Bran has kept it all close to his chest, for fear of being wrong and disappointing more people than just himself.

As soon as the weight of the revelation dawns on her, something complicated and heartbreaking takes shape in Sansa’s face.

“What?” she whispers.

Next to Bran, Rickon shifts in his seat, the wooden chair making a loud, scraping sound as its legs drag against the floor. The look on his eyes remind Bran of when he first saw their youngest brother again: wild and disbelieving. “How?”

Bran fights the urge to swallow, the words suddenly difficult to say. It’s easy to tell them that he has to do it alone, that it’s far too dangerous, but he knows he needs his siblings if he has any hope of pulling through.

“I think it’s not a matter of her not being able to wake up," he tells them. "It’s her not wanting to.”

Across from Bran, Sansa stills, her eyes blinking once, twice, as she parses through his words. His sister is brilliant, and the life she’s led has made her wise. The conclusion she’s drawn from what Bran has revealed is not pleasant, but it’s certainly the right one.

“You’re going in to get her, aren’t you?”

Sans’s words are delicate, and while she’s phrased it as a question, there is something about the way her shoulders are slumped that tells Bran he doesn’t need to answer her query. She already knows.

“It’s the only way,” he tells his sister. “But before I do it, I need to know the reason why she’s not allowing herself to return to us.”

When he faces Brienne, the knight startles. “Your Grace?”

Bran takes a deep breath, before letting the pieces of the puzzle he’s been working on fall into place. There’s a twisted sort of pride in him, that the gods did very little to help him come to this particular realization.

“You met her, didn’t you?” Bran hears Sansa gasp, and there’s a muted whine from Shaggydog, the only indication of Rickon’s surprise. He ignores all that in favor of holding Brienne’s brittle gaze. “Before she returned to us. Before you met Sansa.”

Brienne swallows. “I don’t, I can’t-” She continues to shake her head, face turning pale. “I’m not sure I understand.”

There are many things Bran has yet to know about what happened to his sister, all those years she was away from them. The first time he tried to seek answers, when she was already back and still not _home_ , he was greeted with a void so vast that he rose from the visions gasping for air, for any semblence of _life_.

Wherever she went and whatever she did, it was too far from the grasp of the old gods.

“You were in the Riverlands,” Bran urges, recalling every scrap of memory he was able to beg from what little visions Arya’s sleeping form allows him, all those mornings when he tried. “I saw you in her dreams.”

His sister’s mind is the hardest Bran’s ever come across. Even a cursory look, a simple plea to let him in, took every will Bran had been able to conjure. If he is going to dive into the abyss to drag Arya back with him, he needs to know what is waiting for him on the other side.

So when the first familiar face Bran has seen was the Maid of Tarth’s, in a memory so drenched in blood and sorrow, Bran knew it is going to be his anchor.

He just has to know what happened that day.

“No,” Brienne gasps. “It can’t be…the grey-eyed stranger.”

Of their own volition, Bran’s hands grip the arms of his chair tighter, and he almost leaps on the table. Later, he will blame the impulse from being in Summer’s skin mere moments ago.

“Yes,” he says, Brienne’s words the horizon he has been seeking for a long time. “Arya. That was Arya.”

Bran knows that he’s being foolish, spilling his sister’s secrets for all the realm to see. But he can taste the desperation in his tongue, bitter and scorching, and he knows Brienne can see it in his face as well.

“You Grace…”

“Tell me.” Outside, in the deep snow, Bran can almost hear Nymeria. Whether it was a cry of protest or of support, Bran cannot tell. “Help me wake her.”

Brienne does.

Afterwards, in the ashes of his own hubris, Bran wishes she hadn’t.


	4. Behind the Winter Rose Door

Her skin is freezing.

The warmth from the hearth seems endless, and the mountain of furs dwarf her slight form, yet Bran’s sister remains cold to the touch.

When he was younger, Arya was a snowstorm in the shape of a girl. She taught him how to slip past their lady mother when he wanted to climb and be one with the sky. She encouraged his dreams of becoming a knight of the Kingsguard, and shared his passion for Old Nan’s dragon stories. It was Arya who showed him that it was all right to give lemon pie to the stable hand, and that strength is never measured by the weight of one’s sword.

_I shall see you again_ , she whispered in his ear, before she and father and Sansa left for King’s Landing all those years ago. Amidst the darkness, in the clutches of pain and misery, Bran heard her.

_I am here now_ , he wants to tell his sleeping sister. _Open your eyes, and you shall see me again_.

“Bran?”

It’s a testament to how removed Bran has allowed himself to be in that moment, that he doesn’t even hear the door opening. When he turns, he catches the briefest glimpse of a blue wreath before Jon is shutting the ironwood behind him.

“Jon,” he greets his cousin, carefully placing Arya’s hand back on her side.

The gesture doesn’t escape Jon’s notice, and Bran watches as grey eyes travel from pale, frozen fingers to an ashen, unmoving face.

It seems as though Jon is also helpless against the pull of the woman on the bed, because it takes him a long time before he returns to Bran, shaking himself back to the present in a manner that is unbecoming of a prince and heir.

“No one told me you would be here,” Jon says, gaze leaving Arya to hold Bran’s own.

Any other instance, Jon will have bowed and greeted according to custom. The man has never borne him any ill will for taking the bronze crown and the North from him. Bran knows it has always been the family and the name Jon yearned for, never the House nor the seat of power.

But in this room, and in relation to the slip of a girl lying between them, Jon knows no lord nor queen. For Arya, Jon fears no god.

“You weren’t there for supper,” is Bran’s response.

He knows that Jon breaks his fast with Sam in the guard’s hall, and spends all his other meals with Tormund Giantsbane and the free folk. After supper and his own jaunt to the godswood, in the exact same hour every night, Jon comes to these chambers, and spends a quarter of the night keeping vigil.

“I eat elsewhere,” Jon tells him, voice flat. It’s the tone he uses when Bran forces him to acknowledge something they both already know to be true. Though Jon does not fear Bran’s gifts, he has no great love for them either. “I am not at ease with the company.”

A fortnight ago, Jon will have meant that he prefers to stay out of his Aunt’s way. Now, Bran knows that the man means just about everybody else. Since Sansa and Rickon have both made themselves scarce after Bran drove them out of the library the moment Brienne’s words started to make sense, it is Jaime Lannister who shared the table with Bran for supper.

He wonders, briefly, if Jon will continue his cold tolerance and thinly-veiled contempt for the kingslayer if he knows just how much they both owe the man.

Bran nods, if only to respect his cousin’s honesty. “We finished early.”

The response is meant to take them back to the matter at hand, the reason why Bran has intruded upon what all know to be Jon’s and Jon’s alone.

Yet the prince has not moved from his place by the door. Bran can see the hard lines that shape the other man’s form, and the careful way he is holding himself. Jon’s right hand has now curled into a fist, and he is standing very, very still.

For a moment, the king allows himself to feel anger. Unspoken or not, Jon has no right to presume that the late hours of the night, any hour, shall be denied to anybody else. _She is my sister too_ , Bran wants to shout.

Then he remembers who the man before him is.

He remembers who Jon Targaryen was, before the war and the dragons, before the realm tore their family apart. He remembers who Jon always will be, and the question the man Bran once called brother never asked him, never dared.

Bran remembers, and feels a great shame for his own presumptions.

“I was waiting for you,” is what he says instead. “I figured here is as good a place as any.”

The king doesn’t apologize, but he doesn’t bother making excuses for the slight, either. Like a hunter, he has set a trap for his prey, and Jon is none the wiser.

Even in the coldest and longest of winters, direwolves can still be good game, after all.

“You were,” Jon echoes, finally letting himself move to settle on a chair across from Bran, on the other side of the bed. “Why?”

The question is a mere courtesy, and perhaps a part of Jon truly believes that there are other matters they may discuss, but Bran is under no illusions that Jon will not demand him to leave for anything less than Arya Stark.

The night is young, however, and unlike the nights before, Sansa will not be interrupting them when Jon’s hours run their course. _I made sure of that_ , Bran thinks bitterly.

“What do you know,” he begins, finding it difficult to give voice to his cause now that he has the other man’s attention. For the briefest of moments, Jon flinches, and if Bran is not gripped with purpose, he may have held on to that. “About where she was, I mean. All these years.”

If it is anybody else, Bran may have gone for a different set of demands and accusations, the ones he flung against Jaime Lannister when he dared to return with only one sister, the very same questions he has been tormenting himself for a long time.

_How far did you go? Why did you give up?_

But Bran knows that Jon wears scars that will be answer enough. Jon’s very soul has been marked by the flames that can show people who do ask just how far.

He has reached the edge, and still came back empty-handed.

Countless things flicker across Jon’s grey eyes when the weight of Bran’s query dawns on him.

There is surprise, the same as anyone who finds themselves at the receiving end of a question from a greenseer who is supposed to know everything. Beneath that surprise, there is a delicate thread of betrayal, the kind only family can inspire.

“Why do you ask?” Jon insists, either unaware that they have been trading nothing but questions from the moment he’s arrived, or simply uncaring.

Bran sighs, tired of keeping his secrets close to his chest, of keeping Arya’s sorrows. If his sister has a problem with him asking help from the man who loves her most to save her, then she will just have to wake up and punish Bran herself.

“She has scars,” he says to Jon, tearing his gaze away from his cousin to look at the hand he’s been holding a moment ago. “And there are several burn marks on her fingers.”

The same hand has held Bran when he was smaller, and Rickon when he was but a babe. Fingers that have drawn and released arrow after arrow well before Bran has ever lifted a bow are now weathered, some event bent, like they’ve been broken far too many times, and healed for many more.

If he tries hard enough, even without the visions and the broken stories from other people, even without the crooked tapestry of Arya’s journey that he now holds in his heart, Bran can still map out her grief in one hand alone.

On his seat, Jon remains still.

“Do you not think we ought to know where they’re from?”

The last query, Bran gives a little more strength, more heat, and he feels something like hope flicker in his chest like flames as Jon’s eyes come alive.

It reminds him of a distant memory, when the man across from him was family instead of a fellow leader. The Jon he needs is the man who died for everything he has ever held dear, not the one who came back from the abyss.

“I do wish to know,” Jon admits, voice and eyes hard. “And she can tell me all about it herself, when she wakes.”

Like a proper Stark, Jon has lived his life in service of honor. Some of that is out of duty, to Ned and the family that has never been truly his. Jon’s honor has also been born out of shame, for the circumstances of his birth, both what he’s believed in all his life and what he’s come to know as the truth. That same honor has also been shaped by his failures. Bran knows that the other man wears it like an armor, but now that the war is over, Jon has donned on a cloak of resentment in its stead, and he wears it well.

His resentment is evident when he speaks to his men and his friends from the free folk. Their faith and trust in Jon is a great burden upon his shoulders, one he’s never asked for nor wanted. Bran can see it in every command, in every reassurance. He also sees that resentment whenever Jon talks to Daenerys Stormborn, when Jon watches her be so proud of a House drenched in fire and blood. Jon’s resentment is for the crown she has placed upon his head, and her stories of a girl he’s thought to be dead, who has spent a lifetime across the Narrow Sea, with a different Targaryen.

“We may not have the luxury to wait,” Bran says, taking his sister’s hand and giving in to the pull of her presence, so formidable and pervasive even when she is doing nothing but breathe.

A greater flame suddenly fills Jon’s silver gaze. Ice and fire, indeed.

“What do you mean?” he thunders.

The question is not at all a request. Bran swiftly remembers that before they reunited, Jon had spent years as a shepherd of his own flock. Lord Commander. King. Leader. He does not need to say it for Bran to understand that this time, he does not have the option to speak in riddles.

“She may not want to tell us,” Bran says. “She may not wish to wake because of it.”

Their Arya, above all, is a creature of pride. Bran knows it may well be that her guilt and shame are great enough to choose abyss over her home. The gods themselves are witness to the constant temptation that grips him as well, every day he is forced to return to his mortal flesh.

It is why he demanded that Sansa and Rickon leave that day, after all, before Brienne tells him the entire tale. Better for him and Arya to share one last burden.

“What are you saying?”

The chair Jon is sitting on protests as the man nearly lunges out of it.

“Do you know how to bring her back?”

The constant air of hostility that surrounds Jon flares to the surface, and Bran watches as different thoughts grapple to find purchase in the forefront of other man’s mind. Jon is wondering whether this is something Bran has just discovered, or if it is something he’s known all along, and has kept from Jon the entire time.

“I do,” Bran allows himself to say. If only faith is enough. “But it will not be easy.”

This time, when Jon shifts again, it brings him almost the edge of his seat.

“I’ll do it,” he tells Bran. “Tell me how and I’ll do it.”

For a moment, Bran just sits there, frozen in the wake of Jon’s declaration.

When he is able to breathe again, air coming in short bursts and gasps, he has managed to reason with his pride. He shakes his head, shaken and humbled still.

“You can’t.” He lets go of Arya’s hand, careful to set it so it will not cause her discomfort when she is able to move it herself again. “The place she is right now, it’s not somewhere you can follow.”

Jon blinks at him, then slowly lets his eyes linger on Arya. “But you can.”

In respect to the love and devotion that has been forged long before Bran was born, he lets his response carry a measure of regret.

“Yes,” he says to John. “At least, that is what I’m hoping.”

Proving yet again that in many ways, Jon is a far better man than Bran gives him credit for, the prince eases his hands out of tights fists and gives him a sharp nod.

“What do you need?”

Bran swallows around the lump in his throat. “It’s difficult to tell. But if she really is holding herself back from returning to us, I have to be able to convince her to let go. To come home.”

There is an unmistakable shine in Jon’s eyes as he continues to nod, almost absentmindedly now.

“You need to know what to say. So she believes you.” When Jon chuckles, the sound is not entirely without mirth. “She _is_ plenty stubborn.”

It startles a laugh out of Bran as well. “She is.”

After that, they spend the next moment in silence, the only sound in the chambers that of the crackling of flames from the hearth.

Bran keeps his gaze on the dancing lights, and before he can say anything to break the stillness that drapes over the night, he hears Jon sigh, deep and long.

“Daenerys and Tyrion are gone now.” When Jon looks up, Bran can see in his gaze the strength it takes him to say the words. “They might know what to say. But I doubt the stories they have of her will be safe in ravens.” Jon huffs again, and this time it’s all scorn. “And I’m certain Her Grace will not be so generous with those tales herself.”

“Jon…”

“Tell her, just tell Arya–” Jon’s voice is rough and barely above a whisper. “If you see her, tell her I–”

Bran waits, but he doesn’t hear the rest of it.

When he turns to face Jon, the other man is looking at him. There’s an understanding there that Bran cannot fully recognize.

“Jon?”

His cousin’s smile is gentle and knowing. The sight of it sends Bran’s heart racing.

“She loves you, Bran.” Jon’s gaze returns to Arya, and this time, the light in those grey, Stark eyes hold no resentment at all. “Whatever you say to her will be enough.”

All at once, Bran understands the reason why he sought Jon in the first place, and his breath leaves him in one long rush.

He doesn’t need any more tales, least of all from Jon. If it’s Arya’s guilt he will have to face, what Brienne told him will be enough. He has everything he needs. He's had it for a long time now.

It dawns on Bran then, that he did not come to Arya’s chambers for counsel.

He came for permission.

“She will have changed,” Bran says, when he finds his voice again. “You know that, right?”

When Jon turns to him again, Bran is greeted with the face of a brother.

“She will always be Arya.”

Outside, like the declaration is as much a summons as a vow, they hear a clear and powerful howl. As Bran’s gaze settles on his hand, he finds that it is no longer as cold.


End file.
